A greener future
Engel-Jan de Boer, LR’s Global Yacht Segment Director and Santiago Suarez de la Fuente from LR’s Ship Performance Group look at how the superyacht industry is making positive progress towards finding effective ways to measure a yacht’s environmental impact, but there is an urgent need for these efforts to be consolidated
working with alternative fuels, looking at energy consumption and assisting with the development of these environmental indices,” explains Engel-Jan de Boer, LR’s Global Yacht Segment Director. “We believe, however, that the efforts need to be consolidated and the industry needs to agree on one single index.”
The need for a united front has never been more pressing. While the IMO hasn’t specifically targeted the superyacht industry with any of its environmental regulations thus far, yachts were mentioned for the first time as one of the ship types in its latest Greenhouse Gas Study – meaning the sector is on the radar.
The SEA Index and YETI are currently focusing on the
carbon intensity of yachts at a given and fixed operational profile, which is closer to the IMO’s EEXI.
Engel-Jan de Boer A
key step towards improving the superyacht industry’s environmental footprint is finding an effective method of measuring it. The International Maritime Organisation (IMO) has implemented various instruments to measure
the environmental impact of vessels in the commercial shipping industry – the Energy Efficiency Existing ship Index (EEXI) and Energy Efficiency Design Index (EEDI) relate to energy efficiency at a determined single condition (measured in CO2 emitted by transport work done) and the Carbon Intensity Indicator (CII) relates to the operational carbon intensity observed in a year – but these are not yet applicable to most yachts. Various independent environmental index tools for yachts are being developed in a proactive effort by the industry to take responsibility for reducing its own environmental footprint.
While Lloyd’s Register (LR) has been involved with the development of all the various yacht indices to some extent, and greatly supports the various initiatives, there are concerns that the approach is becoming too fragmented. “We are committed to driving the decarbonisation effort within the yachting sector, including
“The past has taught us that if we don’t act upon incoming regulations at an early stage, we could have issues,” adds de Boer. “That is exactly what happened with the Maritime Labour Convention (MLC 2006) – the industry acted too late and had difficulty adjusting to unsuitable requirements. We don’t want to make the same mistake with environmental indices.”
THE CURRENT LANDSCAPE
One of the first tools developed for the sector was the SEA Index, led by the Yacht Club de Monaco and Credit Suisse. Validated by LR and launched in 2020, the SEA Index aims to enable superyacht owners and guests to easily assess and compare the carbon impact of yachts over 25m and make informed decisions when buying or chartering a vessel. LR is currently issuing CO2 certification on behalf of the SEA Index for the first yachts using the tool.
The first version of the Water Revolution Foundation’s Yacht Environmental Transparency Index (YETI) was launched in November 2022. Its method to assess permanently crewed yachts, with trans-Atlantic capability, above 30 metres on their complete environmental credentials has been co-created by a group of leading shipyards, naval architects and research institutes.
While LR hasn’t been involved in developing the index, de Boer has been responsible for coordinating a joint response from all the prominent classifications societies through a series of roundtable discussions, where it was agreed that the YETI is clearly based on
20 | WINTER 2024 | ONBOARD
Page 1 |
Page 2 |
Page 3 |
Page 4 |
Page 5 |
Page 6 |
Page 7 |
Page 8 |
Page 9 |
Page 10 |
Page 11 |
Page 12 |
Page 13 |
Page 14 |
Page 15 |
Page 16 |
Page 17 |
Page 18 |
Page 19 |
Page 20 |
Page 21 |
Page 22 |
Page 23 |
Page 24 |
Page 25 |
Page 26 |
Page 27 |
Page 28 |
Page 29 |
Page 30 |
Page 31 |
Page 32 |
Page 33 |
Page 34 |
Page 35 |
Page 36 |
Page 37 |
Page 38 |
Page 39 |
Page 40 |
Page 41 |
Page 42 |
Page 43 |
Page 44 |
Page 45 |
Page 46 |
Page 47 |
Page 48 |
Page 49 |
Page 50 |
Page 51 |
Page 52 |
Page 53 |
Page 54 |
Page 55 |
Page 56 |
Page 57 |
Page 58 |
Page 59 |
Page 60 |
Page 61 |
Page 62 |
Page 63 |
Page 64 |
Page 65 |
Page 66 |
Page 67 |
Page 68 |
Page 69 |
Page 70 |
Page 71 |
Page 72 |
Page 73 |
Page 74 |
Page 75 |
Page 76 |
Page 77 |
Page 78 |
Page 79 |
Page 80 |
Page 81 |
Page 82 |
Page 83 |
Page 84 |
Page 85 |
Page 86 |
Page 87 |
Page 88 |
Page 89 |
Page 90 |
Page 91 |
Page 92 |
Page 93 |
Page 94 |
Page 95 |
Page 96 |
Page 97 |
Page 98 |
Page 99 |
Page 100 |
Page 101 |
Page 102 |
Page 103 |
Page 104 |
Page 105 |
Page 106 |
Page 107 |
Page 108 |
Page 109 |
Page 110 |
Page 111 |
Page 112 |
Page 113 |
Page 114 |
Page 115 |
Page 116 |
Page 117 |
Page 118 |
Page 119 |
Page 120 |
Page 121 |
Page 122 |
Page 123 |
Page 124 |
Page 125 |
Page 126 |
Page 127 |
Page 128 |
Page 129 |
Page 130 |
Page 131 |
Page 132 |
Page 133 |
Page 134 |
Page 135 |
Page 136 |
Page 137 |
Page 138 |
Page 139 |
Page 140 |
Page 141 |
Page 142 |
Page 143 |
Page 144 |
Page 145 |
Page 146 |
Page 147 |
Page 148 |
Page 149 |
Page 150 |
Page 151 |
Page 152 |
Page 153 |
Page 154 |
Page 155 |
Page 156 |
Page 157 |
Page 158 |
Page 159 |
Page 160 |
Page 161 |
Page 162 |
Page 163 |
Page 164 |
Page 165 |
Page 166 |
Page 167 |
Page 168 |
Page 169 |
Page 170 |
Page 171 |
Page 172 |
Page 173 |
Page 174 |
Page 175 |
Page 176 |
Page 177 |
Page 178 |
Page 179 |
Page 180 |
Page 181 |
Page 182 |
Page 183 |
Page 184 |
Page 185 |
Page 186 |
Page 187 |
Page 188 |
Page 189 |
Page 190 |
Page 191 |
Page 192 |
Page 193 |
Page 194 |
Page 195 |
Page 196 |
Page 197 |
Page 198 |
Page 199 |
Page 200 |
Page 201 |
Page 202 |
Page 203 |
Page 204
